Rate My Professor Emma Stevenson

Professor Emma Stevenson is Professor of Sport and Exercise Science and Head of School for Biomedical, Nutritional and Sport Sciences at Newcastle University’s Faculty of Medical Sciences. She completed her BSc and PhD in Sport and Exercise Nutrition at Loughborough University, earning her doctorate in 2005 under Professor Clyde Williams. After her PhD, she worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Nottingham. In 2015, she joined Newcastle University to spearhead the establishment and growth of Sport and Exercise Science within the Faculty of Medical Sciences.

Professor Stevenson’s research centres on the interplay between nutrition and exercise in promoting health outcomes, with a strong emphasis on healthy ageing. Her interests include nutritional strategies to support brain health and muscle mass maintenance in older adults, interventions to optimise exercise recovery, regulation of appetite and glycaemic control through diet and physical activity, and the metabolic effects of milk proteins. She leads significant initiatives such as the NuBrain UK Consortium for Healthy Brain Ageing, funded by the MRC with £743,975, and Protein for Life, a BBSRC-supported project worth £419,970 aimed at dietary frameworks for healthy ageing. Additional projects encompass the impact of beetroot on health and cognition in ageing and the MilkIntervention Muscle Ageing (MilkMAN) pilot study.

Her scholarly output is substantial, featuring key publications such as “Mediterranean diet adherence is associated with lower dementia risk, independent of genetic predisposition” (BMC Medicine, 2023), “The association between selenium status and global and attention specific cognition in very old adults” (American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2024), “Understanding engagement in diet and dementia prevention research among British South Asians” (Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics, 2024), “Elevations in plasma glucagon are associated with reduced insulin clearance after ingestion of a mixed-macronutrient meal” (Diabetologia, 2024), and “Recovery from resistance exercise in older adults: a systematic scoping review” (Sports Medicine - Open, 2023). These works underscore her influence on nutritional science, exercise physiology, and public health strategies for ageing populations.